Government Agencies

In a December 9 article at Politico Magazine, Erica Peterson went after Louisville's "urban heat island" problem, where "a city’s center experiences significantly hotter temperatures than its less-developed surroundings." In doing so, Peterson rolled out some very questionable statistics. But it's her contention that "As pollution and stagnant air bake in the sun" in the city's heat island, "air…

With 2015 only a couple of weeks away, Ed Schultz just managed to sneak under the wire in the race for Most Inane Question of the Year by an MSNBC Host.  Speaking to Valerie Plame's husband Joe Wilson on the The Ed Show this evening, Schultz suggested: "Your wife was outed by the Vice-President and now he's saying he has no problem with torture. How do you feel about that? I mean isn't it torture…

Here's a small window into a journalist's mindset. In a report on how lower gas prices are affecting the companies operating retail gas stations, Associated Press reporter John Fahey revealed his apparent believes that there are millions of us walking around, perhaps including him, obsessed with getting back at gas station owners for charging us so much at fill-up time for years:

Dictionary.com defines "glib" as "readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so." Jonathan Gruber's apology at his Tuesday congressional hearing included that word. The word, especially the "superficial" element of its definition, applies to how the establishment press covered the hearing. With only rare exceptions, it excluded any mention of what has accurately been…

Tuesday afternoon, Kyle Drennen at NewsBusters observed that the Big Three networks "Appear Finished With Gruber Coverage," and that their Tuesday morning shows had no coverage of the de facto Obamacare architect and his congressional appearance. One factor likely influencing the nets' posture is how original news sources like the Associated Press and the nation's largest dailies have managed to…

Kristen Welker, NBC News White House Correspondent, served as fill-in host on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports Thursday afternoon and took the opportunity to badger Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) over the Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. Speaking to her Republican guest, Welker asked “some of the…

Two recent items in the Washington Post support my contention that the establishment press is currently doing more than anyone besides Lena Dunham and "Jackie," both of whom have been irrefutably exposed as rape story fabulists, to cause victims of sexual assault to be reluctant to come forward (Note: That's not to say that the two women haven't been victims of sexual assault, "only" that the…

A day after Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed that the CIA engaged in “horrific” and “illegal” “torture,” on Thursday morning the cast of ABC’s The View decided to revisit the controversial Democratic Senate report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.  Predictably, Rosie doubled-down on her claim that America “tortured” people but conservative co-host Nicolle…

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nick Pistor has quite an odd take on Dorian Johnson, the closest eyewitness to the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson in early August. The occasion enabling Pistor to publicly purvey his perception was news on Monday that Johnson had taken a job with the City of St. Louis. Before getting to those details, let's look at…

Nearly six years into Barack Obama's presidency, it's still George W. Bush's fault. Early Wednesday morning, Julie Pace at the Associated Press proved yet again why it is more than appropriate to characterize the wire service where she works as the Administration's Press. The headline at Pace's story tells us that poor President Barack Obama still has to confront the "Bush legacy," and is still…

On Wednesday, Michael Morrell, former Deputy Director of the CIA and current CBS News Senior Security Contributor, appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss the Democrat-led Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists. While the former CIA official vehemently rejected the contents of the report, co-host Norah O’Donnell did…

Who were those guys on Morning Joe today—two Feinstein staffers? Nope, they were Mark Halperin and Jeremy Peters, making like Dem aides in defending the report on the CIA that Dem Senator Diane Feinstein released yesterday. Halperin, head of Bloomberg Politics, had the chutzpah to claim that the report was not "political."  Peters of the New York Times then chimed in to say that in releasing the…

On Monday, ABC and NBC's morning newscasts both touted the upcoming congressional report on the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation techniques as "explosive" and "damning." However, neither network pointed out that it was Democratic members on the Senate Intelligence Committee that commissioned the document. By contrast, CBS This Morning reported that "Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are…

Friday's Employment Situation Summary contained one strong element: In November, the economy added 321,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. That's not insignificant, but that news, especially in the report's full context, certainly didn't justify the level of elation seen in much of the press. Predictably, the Associated Press found a specious reason to characterize the government's report as…